I-70 In Independence Is Closed This Weekend, So Here's What You Need To Know

The Missouri Department of Transportation is getting set to temporarily close all lanes of I-70 in both directions for about seven miles through Kansas City and Independence.

The highway will be shut down between I-435 and I-470/MO-291 from 10 p.m. Friday until about 5 a.m. Monday. The closure runs approximately from the Truman Sports Complex to Independence Center. All on-ramps between the two points will be closed as well.

The closure is to make way for the demolition of three aging overpasses. The bridges to be demolished are at Pittman Road, Crysler Avenue and Phelps Road. All three bridges are listed by the Missouri Department of Transportation as being in “critical condition.” All were built in the early 1960s.

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The story: Singer-songwriter Heidi Gluck is originally from Canada; she now lives in Lawrence, Kansas. But before she settled there, she lived in Indiana where she was involved in a tight-knit musical scene.

"We've gone through some life stuff together," says Gluck. "And we still make music together. So they've just been my musical family."

In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation creating the interstate highway system that links just about every major city in the United States. The very first stretch of this was an eight-mile stretch of I-70, which started in Missouri and ended in Topeka, Kansas.

Now, at 2,151 miles, I-70 runs from Baltimore, Maryland, to Provo, Utah. Since it was finished, Kansas and Missouri have been shaped by I-70.

It runs from Baltimore to Provo, Utah, and the 1985 World Series was nicknamed after it. And did you know that they started building the very first stretch of it in Missouri, but the first section to be completed was in Kansas? A look at how Kansas and Missouri have been shaped by I-70.

Plus, we hear from a woman who has driven a stretch of I-70 so much that she wrote a song about it.